Maintaining Mindfulness

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Turns out I was in slow mode because of Zyrtec, which I mistakenly thought would make me feel better. Instead I just felt extremely groggy until I put two and two together and stopped taking it and starting taking Claritin-D instead. Whew. I feel amazing now!

I've had a fabulous weekend. Unfortunately I didn't get to do a longer run as planned. I did BodyPump on Friday night and then went ice skating for around an hour on Saturday and the combination just made me too sore. But my mind wants to run! It'll have to wait!! Tomorrow night I plan on doing a cycling class at the gym. Perhaps Liz will run with me Wednesday night after I volunteer.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

I'm totally stuck in a cold-induced fog right now. Ugh. It's so disorienting and frustrating. Yesterday I couldn't remember the word for cafe au lait so I just said coffee with steamed milk, and it took me a couple minutes to come up with that one! Sigh. It was so scary that I couldn't remember what seems to me such a simple word/phrase.

It's very tough and scary and actually kind of hard to apply mindfulness to this situation. My brain has been in slow mode for about 4-5 days now, and I'm just ready to think like myself again!

Saturday, November 27, 2010

I am busy now; The Internet has stolen So much precious time.There's a lot of truth in this haiku. What would you be doing if you weren't online? Let's start with me...I'd be reading words printed on actually paper.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

I read this yesterday on Jenna's wonderful blog, and I've been trying to make it my new mantra. I've heard it before, but the way her post set-up the quote really made it hit home for me. I suggest you check it out here.

Friday, November 19, 2010

I just did a quick, 5 minute meditation. Why don't I do this more often? Why do I mentally run from meditating regularly? I always have, even when I was meditating daily. But it is so good for me. It makes me feel calm and balanced. Running away from good things is kind of a theme in my life. Or it has been since around 7th grade. I'm trying to fix this. It just takes slow, daily commitment.

This is a great site from UCLA with several meditation downloads available: http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=22

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Whatever people were doing, whether it was having sex or reading or shopping, they tended to be happier if they focused on the activity instead of thinking about something else. In fact, whether and where their minds wandered was a better predictor of happiness than what they were doing.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

I woke up this morning feeling a little guilty. You see, the previous night I went out with my old, fabulous co-workers for happy hour. We drank a lot of margaritas and then parted ways around 8:30. I then proceeded to go to a party where I was definitely the most drunk...okay, maybe not the most drunk, but the most drunk-acting. See, put a couple of drinks in me, and I'm outgoing, giggly, silly. I woke up this morning worried that maybe I had been too outgoing, giggly, silly, etc. But after a couple of seconds of worrying about this, I realized that this is me. This is how I get after a drink or two. Okay, confession: I even get that way after a particularly strong dose of caffeine. It's just in my personality to be silly. And that is okay. It's who I am. Besides, if I need to rationalize, I can always point to the fact that there were people at the party who were arguably demonstrating much worse behavior than me. :)